Monday, December 15, 2008

Mother's Milk

My in-laws were in town recently. I don’t have the stereotypical relationship with my in-laws, commonly found in many sitcoms of the 90’s. I genuinely enjoy spending time with them. Plus, since we’re 3000 miles away from either set of parents, we will graciously accept any extra bodies willing to entertain the kids.

It seemed really important to them that WonderWife™ and I have a night out. This was a really good idea on paper, but this plan didn’t take into account Sprout’s erratic sleeping patterns and her continued refusal to be fed by anything unless it’s dispensed by my wife’s boobs combined with our sheer exhaustion. As the day dragged on, WW™ was running on fumes and it was looking less and less likely that we would be having a date.

I'd like to think that it was the pathetic “small puppy begging” look that I wore that caused WW™ to unexpectedly announce after dinner, “I’m going to the store to get milk.” It was true that our milk supply had been tapped and since cow juice is our house’s life’s blood, I had no doubt she was going.

I jumped on this opportunity. “Want company?”

So that night, WonderWife™ and I embarked our first time alone outside of the house together since Sprout was born—our first date in over five months. It was short, but it was a lot of fun. And we’d both desperately needed to have some fun together. Even if it was just 15 minutes in a grocery store, buying milk.

3 comments:

SciFi Dad said...

Some men only need 15 minutes.

Ashley said...

Getting just a few minutes to yourself can be so energizing, we left the kids with the in-laws once and went to McDonalds for a sit down dinner, and it was perfect for what we needed at the time :)

kommishonerjenny said...

this is so sweet! my partner and i got a half hour at a park and coffee. that alone sustained our relationship for another two months. parents are truly amazing people.